'Punk' residing on mainstream coffee tables

Abby Banks' coffee-table book, which features the Purple House, includes punk houses from across the country.

Abby Banks' coffee-table book, which features the Purple House, includes punk houses from across the country.

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Abby Banks' coffee-table book, which features the Purple House, includes punk houses from across the country.

Abby Banks' coffee-table book, which features the Purple House, includes punk houses from across the country.

'Punk' residing on mainstream coffee tables

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"Punk House" is a fat, glossy coffee-table book printed and distributed by a major New York City publisher and has a $27.50 price tag. But the project had humble beginnings.

A few years ago, Abby Banks was waitressing and living with her parents in Claremont (Los Angeles County) when inspiration struck: She would tour the country, the way Danish photographer Jacob Holdt did for his "American Pictures" project, but she'd shoot the interiors of punk houses.

"My whole life, I've always been obsessed with houses," says Banks, 29, an art major who now lives in Vermont. "I was obsessed with my mom's house and my room, decorating it and moving stuff in here. And other people's houses - I'm always totally fascinated with what they do with their rooms, especially artists."

She saved several thousand dollars from odd jobs and in 2004 packed a van with canned tuna and baked beans, spaghetti and spaghetti sauce, crackers and instant ramen noodles. With a little help from the editor of punk zine Maximumrocknroll, Banks and her friend Timothy Findlen, a musician, set off for a coast-to-coast tour of punk houses with names such as Barely Legal House in Milwaukee and Legion of Doom in Ohio, possibly the oldest punk house in America.

The definition of "punk" varies wildly (see www.urbandictionary.com). But most people agree that being punk these days involves a do-it-yourself ethos, a rejection of conformity, a refusal to sell out to corporate America and, at times, a fierce fight against perceived injustices.

While it might be hard to distinguish the Bay Area's less-nihilistic leftist punks from the older hippies, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth explains, in his introduction to the book, how the two subcultures evolved together: "By the early to mid-'80s the punk house scene became noticeably prevalent. The generational influx of youth from counter-cultural parents in many cases bona fide hippies, was certainly a more pertinent demographic. ... Hippie culture as a familial reference became newly pronounced in the punk underground and terms like 'hippie punk,' 'peace punk' and 'crusty punk' were being applied, sometimes in denigration and sometimes with obvious note."

So what, exactly, defines a punk house? Mostly, it's a space where the residents, usually in their 20s, live cheaply and maintain alternative lifestyles. Cleaning tends to be a low priority. Alcohol is prevalent, as are drugs; some punk houses are dominated by speed or heroin junkies, sometimes given to stealing their housemates' food. But oftentimes residents are completely drug-free.

Many punk houses host underground art and rock shows, often bringing in cutting-edge bands from across the country. They're places where Dumpster divers, hitchhikers, train-hoppers, radio pirates and skinny-dippers congregate.

"It's like, 'This is allowed to happen here,' " Banks says. "Getting to the outer realms of reality is allowed here. If you're having crazy thoughts that don't make any sense to society, you can have those here, and it's fine. The people are expressing themselves and getting out things that they feel. I think that the house is secondary."

Within the scene exists a dichotomy between hedonism and self-sacrifice. Many punk houses function on principles of communal living and maintaining sustainable lifestyles in creative ways. The residents might install a composting toilet, or they might take out the pipe from under the sink, collect the water in a 5-gallon bucket and use that water to flush the toilet. They might set up a space to convert cars to veggie oil or, as at the Purple House in Oakland, volunteer their space for a service such as Food Not Bombs. Other punk houses are more about dropping out, flipping the bird to mainstream society and living for art or for the party.

In the name of saving money and living punk, these young artists will put themselves in sometimes extreme, and dangerous, situations - such as one of Banks' friends who lived at a place called Dead Rat Beach in Oakland.

"He lived underneath the stairwell, like in the basement, where he couldn't stand up," she says. "He would shimmy down to his mattress, and then he had to kind of crawl back out. It was about $50 a month, and it was right across the street from the recycling place. ... But he could go into San Francisco, go to all the art shows at night. I mean, San Francisco is amazing."

Banks and Findlen had incredible adventures as they bounced from town to town. Banks remembers a house in Minneapolis that had lofts for couches and beds built into the living room, as well as indoor rope swings. "They had taken all the lamps and nailed them to the tables," she says. "They called it drunk-proofing.

"At this legendary Chattanooga (Tenn.) house, we were all hanging out on the porch with all these people who are train-hoppers - about 18 people," Banks recalls. "And we said, 'Let's go swimming!' We piled everybody in. We were stacked in the back of my truck, bodies on top of bodies - just squeezed. We drove to this creek, and everyone just got naked and jumped in the water and was just freaking out. It was just so nice. Everyone was just getting all the grime off of them."

After years of effort, Banks got her book published. When "Punk House" came out, Banks and Find- len took off on their version of a book tour, once again staying in punk houses.

In a sense the punk house community is like a web that runs through the nation. A sometimes-changing web.

"A lot of people that used to be punks aren't anymore, and they live in more conventional settings," Banks said. "Even people that are in the book, their lives are completely different now."

If the book gets into non-punk hands - and at $27.50 it probably won't get into too many punk homes - Banks will be happy: "It will hopefully encourage (non-punks) to get motivated to be responsible for their own waste."

In Oakland, as John Benson of the Purple House flipped through the book, he smiled and pointed at pictures: "I've stayed there. ... I've stayed there, too," he said, remembering when he was on tour with the band A Minor Forest.

"OK, it's $30 and people can put it on their coffee table to prove how hip they are because they're aware of this community," Benson said. "But I'm not afraid of that at all because I think it's a wonderful way to document this moment."